As a daily newspaper editor, I was accustomed to public speaking. During my journalistic career I also researched blood feuds and interviewed murderers in Yugoslavia, acted as a consultant to newspapers in East Europe after the fall of Communism and served on the code committee of the Press Complaints Council.

I also worked as a managing director of daily papers and at the time of my retirement was senior editorial adviser in the Daily Mail's regional portfolio with oversight of around 50 newspapers in the Daily Mail's regional portfolio.

I am a member of the Critics' Circle having reviewed drama and opera as a pastime for many years, currently for the British Theatre Guide - see https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/users/181. I also run a successful opera appreciation group for the u3a, for which I was formerly its national adviser on opera.

My biography of the prolific children's writer Ursula Moray Williams, creator of classic characters such as Gobbolino and The Little Wooden Horse, was published by a division of Northumbria University, telling how her magical childhood in a ruinous mansion in the woods inspired her stories.